


The Chick is Mightier Than the Sword

by emeebee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 03:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10756014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeebee/pseuds/emeebee
Summary: According to Most Macabre Monstrosities the crow of a rooster is fatal to basilisks. So what if the Sorting Hat had given Harry a chicken instead of the Sword of Gryffindor?





	The Chick is Mightier Than the Sword

In a stunning turn of events Harry Potter found himself in mortal peril. He'd slid down the fun-time slide to the Chamber of Secrets with his best friend and worst professor, promptly been separated from the both of them and now the spirit of Tom Riddle loomed over a fading Ginny Weasley as he monologued. 

"I've become the greatest wizard in the world," Tom Voldemort Riddle crooned. "I killed your parents, the mere memory of me has driven Dumbledore away, I've mastered the art of the horcrux-"

"What's a horcrux," Harry interrupted.

"Oh, just a powerful piece of magic. No need for you to bother yourself with it. I'm just laying down some foreshadowing for the next five books. Anyway." 

But before he could continue a loud, screeching sort of song echoed through the chamber of secrets cutting off any further monologuing. Harry wasn't sure if this noise was better. But it turned out to be the song of Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix. And anything of Dumbledore's was a-okay in Harry's book. After all, the man could do no wrong. He was morally upright. Everything he did was for the Greater Good. And he would certainly never make Harry a pawn in anything, much less the greatest war the wizarding world had ever seen. (Or anything else.) So Harry endured the phoenix song and gave a polite clap when Fawkes finished. Fawkes gave a little bow and dropped a lumpy, brown blob at Harry's feet in thanks.

Tom Riddle rolled his eyes. Birds. He hated them. All they were good for was covering statues with their excrement. There were far better companions and message delivery methods out there.

Harry crouched down and looked at it. It was made of cloth. It was… The sorting hat? He picked it up and put it on.

"Really? A hat? Enough of this, Harry Potter. Tell me how I fail to kill you in my future, your past." His eyes narrowed and a sinister smile grew on his lips. "The longer you talk, the longer you live."

Harry thought. Dumbledore hadn't quite explained this to him. "I don't know. My mom loved me while she died or something?"

"Ew."

"It's my best guess," Harry said defensively.

"Alright, I'm bored. You've lived long enough. Let's fight. You've got an old hat from a crackpot wizard, and I've got a giant snake."

"What?"

"Oh yeah." Tom Riddle spoke in parsletongue, "speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four." In response, a giant statue of Salazar Slytherin (seriously this thing was big. How deep beneath Hogwarts were they, anyway? The fun-time slide hadn't felt that long) opened its mouth and the basilisk emerged and wound its way down to the floor. 

Harry was careful to avert his eyes.

The Sorting hat balked on Harry's head. "Nope. Dumbledore didn't tell me anything about this. I'm out," it rumbled in Harry's ear. It gave a little wiggle and pop before leaping off of Harry's head and away from the fight. Harry's head felt heavier than when the sorting hat sat on it. He was sorry to see the hat go. Harry couldn't imagine what use it would have been to him against a basilisk but having something with him felt safer - especially when that something was sent to him from the greatest wizard of all time: Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Harry, Tom Riddle, and the Basilisk all turned to watch it go. The sorting hat curved up, balanced precariously on the edges of the brim, its ties trailing behind it, and began a rocking waddle away, dragging its ties behind it like toilet paper stuck to a shoe, looking for all the world as though it were trying to avoid the dampest parts of the floor.

Harry felt something on his head move and he froze. He gingerly felt around and plucked out an egg that had nestled into his curls. White shards of eggshell rained down through his fingers and revealed a tiny chick. It laid eyes on Ginny and ruffled and pecked at Harry until he let it down beside her. The chick turned its attention to Tom Riddle and the basilisk and gave them a look Harry hadn't thought possible of a chicken. It spread its feet, extended its tiny, yellow wings, and let out a peep. 

Tom Riddle turned to the basilisk. "Does that… Does that count as a crow?"

The basilisk hunched up in confusion as if it was shrugging its shoulders only to be petrified in that silly looking position.

"Oh bugger," Tom Riddle said as the basilisk petrified and fell, one of its fangs lodging in the diary. Tom Riddle vanished and Ron, Lockhart, and Fawkes burst into the room. They grabbed Ginny, the diary, and the chick (Harry couldn't bear to leave it behind), grabbed hold of the bird's tail (seriously? A bird just saved their life and they show their thanks by abusing another bird?) and let Fawkes fly them back to Dumbledore's office.

It wasn't until they were in the hospital wing with a freshly de-petrified Hermione that Harry remembered the chick struggling in his robe pocket. He pulled it out. "We best get you to Hagrid."

"No!" it cried. "I wanna stay with my mum!"

Harry looked around. "Did… Did that chicken just talk?" Ron and Hermione shrugged.

"Sounded like peeps to me."

Hermione's face brightened. "When I was reading about basilisk in Most Macabre Monstrosities it mentioned that basilisks are made by hatching a chicken egg under a toad. And if you can understand basilisks, maybe your parseltongue ability also allows you to talk to chickens!"

"That's a bit of a stretch," Ron said.

Hermione glared at him. "Well let's hear your explanation then!"

"What did you do with my mum," the chick demanded. 

"Umm," Harry said. "Who?"

"The pretty lady on the ground in the room with the big snake!"

"Ginny?"

"Yes," Ginny asked from her bed on the other side of the room.

Harry walked over to her. "Short version: Parseltongue lets me talk to chickens now? And this one that saved our lives thinks you are its mother."

"Mummy!" The chick lept from Harry's hands and nestled in the crook of Ginny's neck.

Ginny cast a panicked look at Ron. "Why is the chick talking?"

"This is Hogwarts," he said. "What DOESN'T talk?"

"But why can I understand it?"

Hermione popped up like some kind of scholarly wack-a-mole. "Possibly due to your posession by Voldemort-" Ginny flushed "-combined with the fact that the chick has clearly imprinted on you."

The chick nuzzled Ginny again. She looked at the chick fondly. "I think I'll name you Rupert Grint."

"Terrible name," said Ron. "Sounds like a real tosser!"

"Actually, I'm a girl chicken." 

Harry looked confused. "Hermione, I thought it was only rooster crows that were fatal to basilisks. But the chick just said it’s a girl."

"Well," Hermione said matter-of-factly. "Most Macabre Monstrosities was written years ago by a bit of a patriarchical man with some obvious rooster bias. Clearly the sound of female chickens can also be fatal to basilisks."

So Ginny named the chick Edwina Sheeran instead but kept it all the same. She had it deliver letters for her and shared the eggs with the kitchens.

**Author's Note:**

> I owe the idea for this fic to dracolucivs on tumblr (also to fleamontpotter for their artful contribution).


End file.
